You’ve seen 15648917, but later you think it was 15643917. You’re wrong, because actually the state of your neurons was of (what you are usually describe as) seeing 15648917. If in the moment of seeing 15648917 (in the moment, when your seeing-neurons are in the state of seeing 15648917) you are thinking that you see 15643917 (meaning your thinking-neurons are in the state of thinking that you see 15643917 ), then you are wrong in same way you may be wrong later. It works the same way the knowledge about everything works.
You can define “being in the state of seeing 15648917” as “knowing you are seeing 15648917″, but there is no reason to do it, you will get unnecessary complications, you can’t use this knowledge, it doesn’t work like knowledge—because it’s not knowing about state, it’s being in a state.
I disagree. Knowing that I’m in pain doesn’t require an additional and separate mental state about this pain that could be wrong. My being in pain is already sufficient for my knowledge of pain, so I can’t be mistaken about being in pain, or about currently having some other qualia.
If a doctor asks a patient whether he is in pain, and the patient says yes, the doctor may question whether the patient is honest. But he doesn’t entertain the hypothesis that the patient is honest but mistaken. We don’t try to convince people who complain about phantom pains that they are actually not in pain after all. More importantly, the patient himself doesn’t try to convince himself that he isn’t in pain, because that would be pointless, even though he strongly wishes it to be true.
You can define “being in the state of seeing 15648917” as “knowing you are seeing 15648917″, but there is no reason to do it, you will get unnecessary complications
I think it’s the opposite: there is no reason to hypothesize that you need a second, additional mental state in order to know that you are in the first mental state.
because it’s not knowing about state, it’s being in a state.
All knowing involves being in a state anyway, even in other cases where you have knowledge about external facts. Knowing that a supermarket is around the corner requires you to believe that a supermarket is around the corner. This belief is a kind of mental state; though since it is about an external fact, it is itself not sufficient for knowledge. Having such a belief about something (like a supermarket) is not sufficient for its truth, but having an experience of something is.
Knowing that I’m in pain doesn’t require an additional and separate mental state about this pain that could be wrong.
Well, remember that illusion when you see a rubber hand, then some guy strikes it with a hammer and you recoil, perturbed and confused if you are in pain or not. Or sometimes you can notice that you are in pain, and in fact was in pain for some time, just not paid attention to it, but obvious as you look at your memory now.
I never did the rubber hand test, but recoiling from something doesn’t mean you believe you are in pain. (It doesn’t even necessarily mean you believe you have been injured, as you may recoil just from seeing something gross.) And the confusion from the rubber hand illusion presumably comes from something like a) believing that your hand has been physically injured and b) not feeling any pain. Which is inconsistent information, but it doesn’t show that you can be wrong about being in pain.
About (not) noticing pain: I think attention is a degree of consciousness, and that in this case you did pay some attention, just not complete attention. So you experienced the pain to a degree, and you knew the pain to the same degree. So this isn’t an example of being in pain without knowing it. Nor of falsely believing you’re not in pain.
There is a related case in which you may not be immediately able to verbalize something you know. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t know it, only that not all knowledge is propositional, and that knowing a propositional form isn’t necessary for knowing the what or how.
Feels like yet again the distinction of “starting from where we factor out everything else”. I’m more uncertain about that than most proponents of both camps.
Maybe at some point it makes sense to say that I’m confused about what I feel, what my qualia are? But you have the uhh intention to go deeper and say “oh, you are confused, so you feel confusion instead of whatever you are confused about, case closed”. KInda god of the gaps style.
Also might be that the most cases of feeling things are very apparent, so that weird examples are rare and weird. Most feelings are like 2 + 2 = 4, you would have trouble imagining being confused or wrong about it. When you can readily imagine being confused about 74389 + 37423 = 113812
Then illusionist says “I have no idea what are you talking about, yes, pain and redness I feel them, but what’s so interesting about that, metaphysically? they are just states of my brain, duh, nothing special”. And I think it’s kinda weird that I’m here and feeling things? like, it just feels weird that it’s a thing?
If a doctor asks a patient whether he is in pain, and the patient says yes, the doctor may question whether the patient is honest. But he doesn’t entertain the hypothesis that the patient is honest but mistaken.
Nothing in this situation uses certain self-knowledge of moment of experience. Patient can’t communicate it—communication takes time, so it can be spoofed. More importantly, if patient’s knowledge of pain is wrong in the same sense it can be wrong later (that patient says and thinks that they are not in pain, but they actually are and so have perfectly certain knowledge of being in pain, for example), the doctor should treat it the same way as patient misremembering the pain. Because the doctor cares about the state of patient’s brain, not their perfectly certain knowledge. Because calling “being in a state” “knowledge” is epiphenomenal.
Another way to illustrate this, is that you can’t describe your pain with perfect precision, you can’t perfectly tell apart levels of pain. So if you can’t be sure which pain you are feeling, why insist you are sure you are feeling pain instead of pressure? What exactly you are sure about?
And, obviously, the actual reason doctors don’t worry about it in practice, is that it’s unlikely, not because it’s impossible.
though since it is about an external fact, it is itself not sufficient for knowledge.
What does “external” mean? Can I answer the doctor everything about chemical composition of air if I decide air is a part of me? Can I be wrong about temperature of my brain? About me believing that a supermarket is around the corner?
I think it’s the opposite: there is no reason to hypothesize that you need a second, additional mental state in order to know that you are in the first mental state.
One reason is that is how every other knowledge works—one thing gains knowledge about other by interacting with it. Another reason—perfectly certain self-knowledge works differently. And we already have contradiction-free way to describe it—“being in a state”. Really, the only reason for calling it perfectly certain knowledge is unjustified intuition.
Another reason is that it’s not really just a hypothesis, when you in fact have parts other than some specific qualia. And these other parts implement knowledge in the way that allows it to be wrong the same way memories can be wrong. So you’ll have potentially wrong knowledge about qualia anyway—defining additional epiphenomenal perfectly certain self-knowledge wouldn’t remove it.
Memories of qualia are uncertain, but current qualia are not.
You’ve seen 15648917, but later you think it was 15643917. You’re wrong, because actually the state of your neurons was of (what you are usually describe as) seeing 15648917. If in the moment of seeing 15648917 (in the moment, when your seeing-neurons are in the state of seeing 15648917) you are thinking that you see 15643917 (meaning your thinking-neurons are in the state of thinking that you see 15643917 ), then you are wrong in same way you may be wrong later. It works the same way the knowledge about everything works.
You can define “being in the state of seeing 15648917” as “knowing you are seeing 15648917″, but there is no reason to do it, you will get unnecessary complications, you can’t use this knowledge, it doesn’t work like knowledge—because it’s not knowing about state, it’s being in a state.
I disagree. Knowing that I’m in pain doesn’t require an additional and separate mental state about this pain that could be wrong. My being in pain is already sufficient for my knowledge of pain, so I can’t be mistaken about being in pain, or about currently having some other qualia.
If a doctor asks a patient whether he is in pain, and the patient says yes, the doctor may question whether the patient is honest. But he doesn’t entertain the hypothesis that the patient is honest but mistaken. We don’t try to convince people who complain about phantom pains that they are actually not in pain after all. More importantly, the patient himself doesn’t try to convince himself that he isn’t in pain, because that would be pointless, even though he strongly wishes it to be true.
I think it’s the opposite: there is no reason to hypothesize that you need a second, additional mental state in order to know that you are in the first mental state.
All knowing involves being in a state anyway, even in other cases where you have knowledge about external facts. Knowing that a supermarket is around the corner requires you to believe that a supermarket is around the corner. This belief is a kind of mental state; though since it is about an external fact, it is itself not sufficient for knowledge. Having such a belief about something (like a supermarket) is not sufficient for its truth, but having an experience of something is.
Well, remember that illusion when you see a rubber hand, then some guy strikes it with a hammer and you recoil, perturbed and confused if you are in pain or not. Or sometimes you can notice that you are in pain, and in fact was in pain for some time, just not paid attention to it, but obvious as you look at your memory now.
I think pain has a kinda “belief state” about it.
I never did the rubber hand test, but recoiling from something doesn’t mean you believe you are in pain. (It doesn’t even necessarily mean you believe you have been injured, as you may recoil just from seeing something gross.) And the confusion from the rubber hand illusion presumably comes from something like a) believing that your hand has been physically injured and b) not feeling any pain. Which is inconsistent information, but it doesn’t show that you can be wrong about being in pain.
About (not) noticing pain: I think attention is a degree of consciousness, and that in this case you did pay some attention, just not complete attention. So you experienced the pain to a degree, and you knew the pain to the same degree. So this isn’t an example of being in pain without knowing it. Nor of falsely believing you’re not in pain.
There is a related case in which you may not be immediately able to verbalize something you know. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t know it, only that not all knowledge is propositional, and that knowing a propositional form isn’t necessary for knowing the what or how.
Feels like yet again the distinction of “starting from where we factor out everything else”. I’m more uncertain about that than most proponents of both camps.
Maybe at some point it makes sense to say that I’m confused about what I feel, what my qualia are? But you have the uhh intention to go deeper and say “oh, you are confused, so you feel confusion instead of whatever you are confused about, case closed”. KInda god of the gaps style.
Also might be that the most cases of feeling things are very apparent, so that weird examples are rare and weird. Most feelings are like 2 + 2 = 4, you would have trouble imagining being confused or wrong about it. When you can readily imagine being confused about 74389 + 37423 = 113812
Then illusionist says “I have no idea what are you talking about, yes, pain and redness I feel them, but what’s so interesting about that, metaphysically? they are just states of my brain, duh, nothing special”. And I think it’s kinda weird that I’m here and feeling things? like, it just feels weird that it’s a thing?
idk.
Nothing in this situation uses certain self-knowledge of moment of experience. Patient can’t communicate it—communication takes time, so it can be spoofed. More importantly, if patient’s knowledge of pain is wrong in the same sense it can be wrong later (that patient says and thinks that they are not in pain, but they actually are and so have perfectly certain knowledge of being in pain, for example), the doctor should treat it the same way as patient misremembering the pain. Because the doctor cares about the state of patient’s brain, not their perfectly certain knowledge. Because calling “being in a state” “knowledge” is epiphenomenal.
Another way to illustrate this, is that you can’t describe your pain with perfect precision, you can’t perfectly tell apart levels of pain. So if you can’t be sure which pain you are feeling, why insist you are sure you are feeling pain instead of pressure? What exactly you are sure about?
And, obviously, the actual reason doctors don’t worry about it in practice, is that it’s unlikely, not because it’s impossible.
What does “external” mean? Can I answer the doctor everything about chemical composition of air if I decide air is a part of me? Can I be wrong about temperature of my brain? About me believing that a supermarket is around the corner?
One reason is that is how every other knowledge works—one thing gains knowledge about other by interacting with it. Another reason—perfectly certain self-knowledge works differently. And we already have contradiction-free way to describe it—“being in a state”. Really, the only reason for calling it perfectly certain knowledge is unjustified intuition.
Another reason is that it’s not really just a hypothesis, when you in fact have parts other than some specific qualia. And these other parts implement knowledge in the way that allows it to be wrong the same way memories can be wrong. So you’ll have potentially wrong knowledge about qualia anyway—defining additional epiphenomenal perfectly certain self-knowledge wouldn’t remove it.